Re: [silk] Where is the US economy heading?
The key observation is that the rural land hasn't appreciated because of wealth created by the rural people... To first order, isn't this true everywhere? Urban areas may be good at producing capital because they have to be; when one must trade for resources, one must develop export goods and services. On the other hand, when one just happens to have title to a bunch of extractable resources, it seems common to find people who are much better at spending capital than accumulating it. -Dave
Re: [silk] HD-DVD and Digg
Gautam John wrote: Via Slashdot: An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/05/02/0235228.shtml http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/ Related story. The rumors are that Digg accepted add revenue from HD-DVD and Bluray sometime back. Venkat
Re: [silk] HD-DVD and Digg
And it looks like Digg capitulated to the online frenzy. The creature devoured its creator. But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying. http://blog.digg.com/?p=74 On 5/2/07, Venkat Mangudi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam John wrote: Via Slashdot: An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/05/02/0235228.shtml http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/ Related story. The rumors are that Digg accepted add revenue from HD-DVD and Bluray sometime back. Venkat
[silk] Plastic sheet delivers wireless power
(next step, a smart phased array tracking a rectenna at a distance) http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/070423-11.html Published online: 29 April 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070423-11 Plastic sheet delivers wireless power Desks and walls could one day light up electronics without need for cables. Tom Geller This table can power a light placed above it — even one that's underwater. Takao Someya and colleauges Annoyed by the tangle of power cords under your desk? A sheet of plastic invented by researchers in Japan could one day make for tables and walls that power devices placed on them — without any need for wires or plugs. Computers could be powered through the desks on which they sit, for example, or flat-screen televisions through the walls where they hang. The team of seven researchers at the University of Tokyo has produced a sample sheet of the plastic, which is about the size of a very thin magazine — just one millimetre thick and weighing 50 grams. It can deliver up to 40 watts of power to products on or near it that contain a special 'receiving coil': enough to power a lightbulb or a very small laptop. They say that scaled-up production of such sheets could be inexpensive enough for widespread installation in desks, floors, ceilings and walls, ushering in a new class of electronic devices. The plastic, described today in Nature Materials1, has as its base a layer of transistor featuring pentacene, an organic molecule whose electrical conductivity can be controlled. Topping that are layers holding copper coils that can sense whether a compatible electronic device is nearby, microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) switches that serve to turn on and off the power, and copper coils to transmit electricity. When the sheet itself is plugged in, it can power devices — such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) strung on a Christmas tree — that are built with a matching receiver coil. When these are placed within 2.5 centimetres of the sheet, the nearest MEMS switch turns on, feeding power to the closest sender coil, which powers the device's receiving coil through induction. The researchers say the transmission of power happens with 81.4% efficiency — compared to 93% efficiency in the wired grid network as a whole — with a quite low level of leaked electromagnetic radiation. As a demonstration of the product's safety, the paper shows it powering an LED at the bottom of a bowl containing water and a live fish. All four layers are produced by literally printing them — the coils using screen printing, the switch and transistor layers with an ink-jet printer (using special electronic inks). So the product is thin, lightweight and mechanically flexible. Power pad Wireless power systems are nothing new: many electric toothbrushes are charged wirelessly by standing them in a powered base where electrical contacts come in touch with each other, for example. And several companies offer power 'pads' that, when plugged in, will charge specially developed devices, such as compatible mobile phones, simply by placing them anywhere on the pad's surface. But these use silicon-based transistors, which are harder to manufacture and so are more expensive. Printable organic transistors can theoretically be made of any size, at a considerably lower cost. Roger T. Howe, an electrical engineer at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, is impressed by the work. The demonstration of both organic transistors and MEMS switches in a useful system makes it impressive, he says. But don't throw out your power cords yet: the researchers say that these plastic power sheets probably won't hit the market for 5 years, while they improve their reliability and stability. However, they have received lots of feedback from many companies, and project a target manufacturing cost of US$100 per square metre. Then there's still the trick of getting device manufacturers to put the receiving coils into their products to make them compatible. But should that happen, you may someday enjoy a world with ubiquitous power — and no power cords. References 1. Sekitani T., et al. Nature Materials, advance online publication; doi:10.1038/nmat1903 (2007).
[silk] To Treat the Dead
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186/site/newsweek/ To Treat the Dead The new science of resuscitation is changing the way doctors think about heart attacks―and death itself. By Jerry Adler Newsweek May 7, 2007 issue - Consider someone who has just died of a heart attack. His organs are intact, he hasn't lost blood. All that's happened is his heart has stopped beating―the definition of clinical death―and his brain has shut down to conserve oxygen. But what has actually died? Story continues below ↓advertisement As recently as 1993, when Dr. Sherwin Nuland wrote the best seller How We Die, the conventional answer was that it was his cells that had died. The patient couldn't be revived because the tissues of his brain and heart had suffered irreversible damage from lack of oxygen. This process was understood to begin after just four or five minutes. If the patient doesn't receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation within that time, and if his heart can't be restarted soon thereafter, he is unlikely to recover. That dogma went unquestioned until researchers actually looked at oxygen-starved heart cells under a microscope. What they saw amazed them, according to Dr. Lance Becker, an authority on emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After one hour, he says, we couldn't see evidence the cells had died. We thought we'd done something wrong. In fact, cells cut off from their blood supply died only hours later. But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that astounding discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine's newest frontiers: treating the dead. Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death―not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by reperfusion, the resumption of oxygen supply. The research takes them deep into the machinery of the cell, to the tiny membrane-enclosed structures known as mitochondria where cellular fuel is oxidized to provide energy. Mitochondria control the process known as apoptosis, the programmed death of abnormal cells that is the body's primary defense against cancer. It looks to us, says Becker, as if the cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with oxygen. Something throws the switch that makes the cell die. With this realization came another: that standard emergency-room procedure has it exactly backward. When someone collapses on the street of cardiac arrest, if he's lucky he will receive immediate CPR, maintaining circulation until he can be revived in the hospital. But the rest will have gone 10 or 15 minutes or more without a heartbeat by the time they reach the emergency department. And then what happens? We give them oxygen, Becker says. We jolt the heart with the paddles, we pump in epinephrine to force it to beat, so it's taking up more oxygen. Blood-starved heart muscle is suddenly flooded with oxygen, precisely the situation that leads to cell death. Instead, Becker says, we should aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion. Researchers are still working out how best to do this. A study at four hospitals, published last year by the University of California, showed a remarkable rate of success in treating sudden cardiac arrest with an approach that involved, among other things, a cardioplegic blood infusion to keep the heart in a state of suspended animation. Patients were put on a heart-lung bypass machine to maintain circulation to the brain until the heart could be safely restarted. The study involved just 34 patients, but 80 percent of them were discharged from the hospital alive. In one study of traditional methods, the figure was about 15 percent. Becker also endorses hypothermia―lowering body temperature from 37 to 33 degrees Celsius―which appears to slow the chemical reactions touched off by reperfusion. He has developed an injectable slurry of salt and ice to cool the blood quickly that he hopes to make part of the standard emergency-response kit. In an emergency department, you work like mad for half an hour on someone whose heart stopped, and finally someone says, 'I don't think we're going to get this guy back,' and then you just stop, Becker says. The body on the cart is dead, but its trillions of cells are all still alive. Becker wants to resolve that paradox in favor of life.
Re: [silk] Plastic sheet delivers wireless power
Very interesting, but I am wary of could be, may be inventions...too many of them are never heard of again! Deepa. On 5/2/07, Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (next step, a smart phased array tracking a rectenna at a distance) http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/070423-11.html Published online: 29 April 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070423-11 Plastic sheet delivers wireless power Desks and walls could one day light up electronics without need for cables. Tom Geller This table can power a light placed above it — even one that's underwater. Takao Someya and colleauges Annoyed by the tangle of power cords under your desk? A sheet of plastic invented by researchers in Japan could one day make for tables and walls that power devices placed on them — without any need for wires or plugs. Computers could be powered through the desks on which they sit, for example, or flat-screen televisions through the walls where they hang. The team of seven researchers at the University of Tokyo has produced a sample sheet of the plastic, which is about the size of a very thin magazine — just one millimetre thick and weighing 50 grams. It can deliver up to 40 watts of power to products on or near it that contain a special 'receiving coil': enough to power a lightbulb or a very small laptop. They say that scaled-up production of such sheets could be inexpensive enough for widespread installation in desks, floors, ceilings and walls, ushering in a new class of electronic devices. The plastic, described today in Nature Materials1, has as its base a layer of transistor featuring pentacene, an organic molecule whose electrical conductivity can be controlled. Topping that are layers holding copper coils that can sense whether a compatible electronic device is nearby, microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) switches that serve to turn on and off the power, and copper coils to transmit electricity. When the sheet itself is plugged in, it can power devices — such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) strung on a Christmas tree — that are built with a matching receiver coil. When these are placed within 2.5 centimetres of the sheet, the nearest MEMS switch turns on, feeding power to the closest sender coil, which powers the device's receiving coil through induction. The researchers say the transmission of power happens with 81.4% efficiency — compared to 93% efficiency in the wired grid network as a whole — with a quite low level of leaked electromagnetic radiation. As a demonstration of the product's safety, the paper shows it powering an LED at the bottom of a bowl containing water and a live fish. All four layers are produced by literally printing them — the coils using screen printing, the switch and transistor layers with an ink-jet printer (using special electronic inks). So the product is thin, lightweight and mechanically flexible. Power pad Wireless power systems are nothing new: many electric toothbrushes are charged wirelessly by standing them in a powered base where electrical contacts come in touch with each other, for example. And several companies offer power 'pads' that, when plugged in, will charge specially developed devices, such as compatible mobile phones, simply by placing them anywhere on the pad's surface. But these use silicon-based transistors, which are harder to manufacture and so are more expensive. Printable organic transistors can theoretically be made of any size, at a considerably lower cost. Roger T. Howe, an electrical engineer at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, is impressed by the work. The demonstration of both organic transistors and MEMS switches in a useful system makes it impressive, he says. But don't throw out your power cords yet: the researchers say that these plastic power sheets probably won't hit the market for 5 years, while they improve their reliability and stability. However, they have received lots of feedback from many companies, and project a target manufacturing cost of US$100 per square metre. Then there's still the trick of getting device manufacturers to put the receiving coils into their products to make them compatible. But should that happen, you may someday enjoy a world with ubiquitous power — and no power cords. References 1. Sekitani T., et al. Nature Materials, advance online publication; doi:10.1038/nmat1903 (2007).
Re: [silk] To Treat the Dead
On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 05:21:36PM +0530, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186/site/newsweek/ Once again the cryonics people have been decades ahead of the mainstream. as recently as 1993, my ass. 1983, maybe. http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/cambridge.html To Treat the Dead The new science of resuscitation is changing the way doctors think about heart attacks―and death itself. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] Plastic sheet delivers wireless power
On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 04:31:39PM +0430, Deepa Mohan wrote: Very interesting, but I am wary of could be, may be inventions...too many of them are never heard of again! That thing is too damn useful not to happen. In fact in a decade some people would be able to make that stuff at home, with a rapid protyping device like an inkjet printer. I'm actually interested when the phased array approach will be prototyped, because it could really mean wireless power in line of sight, which can be very far away (look at the sky). It can be fundamentally rather efficient, if the tracking precision is good enough. Deepa. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] To Treat the Dead
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 5:21 pm, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: The body on the cart is dead, but its trillions of cells are all still alive. Becker wants to resolve that paradox in favor of life. er... what will they do if they get this chap's heart beating again? Use him as an organ donor I suppose. Every organ has an ischemia time - i.e time without oxygen or circulation before its cells start showing signs of death. Off the top of my head I recall that ischemia time at body temperature for the liver is 15 minutes, for a kidney it's about half an hour and for muscles it can be as long as 6 hours. Heart, being muscle will probably last longer than liver or kidney (or retina for that matter). I have heard my own father's intestinal sounds (caused by movement of the intestine) five minutes after I declared him dead, shut his eyes and kissed him one last time. Cardioplegia is a technique that is used in open heart surgery and I have been on open heart teams using that in the early 1980s in Pondicherry. This cardioplegia was combined with physical cooling of the body to reduce body temperature and reduce oxygen demand of the body. It has been known for a long time that people who drown in cold water can sometimes be revived even after their heart appears to have stopped, and that appears to be what this guy is talking about. The questions the article has NOT answered is the fact that brain tissue will be dead, and secondly, there is nerve tissue in the heart itself that regulates heartbeat and that too will be dead after 5 minutes of non oxygenation so a restarted heart may need an artificial pacemaker. The other little problem is that when even 5% of trillions of cells die, they release fairly toxic chemicals and when you do restart the heart all these chemicals spread out through the body into every cell and cause secondary problems that can kill. No mention of that in this rather sensational news item. Apart from the errors - such as suggesting that stopping heart massage is a random whim. The author of the article is bullshitting like mad. shiv
Re: [silk] To Treat the Dead
On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:10:29PM +0530, shiv sastry wrote: er... what will they do if they get this chap's heart beating again? I wouldn't. I would perfuse him, and freeze him. Use him as an organ donor I suppose. That's a possibility, but I presume this is about throwing up the window of viability a whole lot wider. Every organ has an ischemia time - i.e time without oxygen or circulation before its cells start showing signs of death. It's not fixed, if you can pre/postmedicate. Premeds are fantastic, but postmedication does make one heck of a difference. Off the top of my head I recall that ischemia time at body temperature for the liver is 15 minutes, for a kidney it's about half an hour and for muscles it can be as long as 6 hours. Heart, being muscle will probably last longer than liver or kidney (or retina for that matter). I have heard my own father's intestinal sounds (caused by movement of the intestine) five minutes after I declared him dead, shut his eyes and kissed him one last time. Cardioplegia is a technique that is used in open heart surgery and I have been on open heart teams using that in the early 1980s in Pondicherry. This cardioplegia was combined with physical cooling of the body to reduce body temperature and reduce oxygen demand of the body. Hypothermia has been there in the OP for a long while now. It has been known for a long time that people who drown in cold water can sometimes be revived even after their heart appears to have stopped, and that appears to be what this guy is talking about. The questions the article has NOT answered is the fact that brain tissue will be dead, and secondly, there is nerve tissue in the heart itself that There is no fixed time for brain death. A lot of the damage cascades appear hours and days after the ischemic event. A whole of them are blockable. regulates heartbeat and that too will be dead after 5 minutes of non I've seen dogs doing just fine after 16 min of normothermic ischaemia. No pre-meds, just arrest with wall current across the heart. oxygenation so a restarted heart may need an artificial pacemaker. The other little problem is that when even 5% of trillions of cells die, they release fairly toxic chemicals and when you do restart the heart all these You can block apoptotic cascades. chemicals spread out through the body into every cell and cause secondary problems that can kill. No mention of that in this rather sensational news item. Yes, but, well, it's press. By definition, they've got very little clue. Apart from the errors - such as suggesting that stopping heart massage is a random whim. The author of the article is bullshitting like mad. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] To Treat the Dead
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 9:37 pm, Eugen Leitl wrote: There is no fixed time for brain death. A lot of the damage cascades appear hours and days after the ischemic event. A whole of them are blockable. I would be interested to hear about what is blockable and by what means. A classmate of mine (Professor David Menon) set up the neurointensive care unit at Addenbrookes in Cambridge in the UK, and heads it, (I'm name dropping now - but he is a good friend) and he is working on the prevention of secondary damage to the brain following trauma. shiv
Re: [silk] To Treat the Dead
On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:54:52PM +0530, shiv sastry wrote: On Wednesday 02 May 2007 9:37 pm, Eugen Leitl wrote: There is no fixed time for brain death. A lot of the damage cascades appear hours and days after the ischemic event. A whole of them are blockable. I would be interested to hear about what is blockable and by what means. A I would be glad to give a long list of the public meds (others I'm forbidded to disclose due to an NDA), but I'm not feeling like an impostor, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Darwin I am not. classmate of mine (Professor David Menon) set up the neurointensive care unit at Addenbrookes in Cambridge in the UK, and heads it, (I'm name dropping now - but he is a good friend) and he is working on the prevention of secondary damage to the brain following trauma. I'll send your email to Darwin and ccm-l both. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] [ccm-l] Doctors Change the Way They Think About Death
- Forwarded message from Lex, Joseph [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Lex, Joseph [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 08:09:40 -0400 To: Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ccm-l] Doctors Change the Way They Think About Death Lance is a great guy whom I've known for more than 20 years; I wish him well in this research. Joe Lex, MD, FAAEM Department of Emergency Medicine 1009 Jones Hall - 1316 West Ontario Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA 19140 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 215 707-5036 office 215 707-3494 fax 215 363-5111 digital pager -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 5:03 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ccm-l] Doctors Change the Way They Think About Death Doctors Change the Way They Think About Death The new science of resuscitation is changing the way doctors think about heart attacks-and death itself. By Jerry Adler Newsweek May 7, 2007 issue - Consider someone who has just died of a heart attack. His organs are intact, he hasn't lost blood. All that's happened is his heart has stopped beating-the definition of clinical death-and his brain has shut down to conserve oxygen. But what has actually died? As recently as 1993, when Dr. Sherwin Nuland wrote the best seller How We Die, the conventional answer was that it was his cells that had died. The patient couldn't be revived because the tissues of his brain and heart had suffered irreversible damage from lack of oxygen. This process was understood to begin after just four or five minutes. If the patient doesn't receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation within that time, and if his heart can't be restarted soon thereafter, he is unlikely to recover. That dogma went unquestioned until researchers actually looked at oxygen-starved heart cells under a microscope. What they saw amazed them, according to Dr. Lance Becker, an authority on emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After one hour, he says, we couldn't see evidence the cells had died. We thought we'd done something wrong. In fact, cells cut off from their blood supply died only hours later. But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that astounding discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine's newest frontiers: treating the dead. Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death-not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by reperfusion, the resumption of oxygen supply. The research takes them deep into the machinery of the cell, to the tiny membrane-enclosed structures known as mitochondria where cellular fuel is oxidized to provide energy. Mitochondria control the process known as apoptosis, the programmed death of abnormal cells that is the body's primary defense against cancer. It looks to us, says Becker, as if the cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with oxygen. Something throws the switch that makes the cell die. With this realization came another: that standard emergency-room procedure has it exactly backward. When someone collapses on the street of cardiac arrest, if he's lucky he will receive immediate CPR, maintaining circulation until he can be revived in the hospital. But the rest will have gone 10 or 15 minutes or more without a heartbeat by the time they reach the emergency department. And then what happens? We give them oxygen, Becker says. We jolt the heart with the paddles, we pump in epinephrine to force it to beat, so it's taking up more oxygen. Blood-starved heart muscle is suddenly flooded with oxygen, precisely the situation that leads to cell death. Instead, Becker says, we should aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion. Researchers are still working out how best to do this. A study at four hospitals, published last year by the University of California, showed a remarkable rate of success in treating sudden cardiac arrest with an approach that involved, among other things, a cardioplegic blood infusion to keep the heart in a state of suspended animation. Patients were put on a heart-lung bypass machine to maintain circulation to the brain until the heart could be safely restarted. The study involved just 34 patients, but 80 percent of them were discharged from the hospital alive. In one study of traditional methods, the figure was about 15 percent. Becker also endorses hypothermia-lowering body temperature
